Many individuals that apply for the SASSA SRD (Social Relief of Distress) Grant are having difficulty in the approval process after submitting their application. Over 11 million applications for the SRD Grant have been submitted in June this year. Unfortunately, less than half of those applications, a little over 5 million applicants, have been approved to benefit from the grant. That means less than 50% of SRD Grant applicants are being approved after submitting their application.
The low number of approved applicants for the SRD Grant is under question by the Department of Social Development (DSD). Lobby groups have raised their concern over the department’s implementation of stricter criteria to approve applicants. Their concern is that it would leave a detrimental effect on millions of applicants that rely on the SRD Grant.
The Minister of Social Development, Lindiwe Zulu, has issued draft regulations to amend some of the requirements for the SRD grant for the period of 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023.
In line with the undertaking that @The_DSD would review the threshold should the numbers indicate this, the Minister has now published draft regulations to amend some of the qualification criteria for public comments.
— Social Development (@The_DSD) July 14, 2022
(13/26)#SASSACARES
“The key proposed amendments relate to the maximum allowable income, the application of the bank verification and the requirement for applicants to confirm their need for the grant after every three months”
The proposed amendment would change the maximum allowable income to increase from R350 a month to R624 a month, meaning that any applicant for the SRD Grant will be declined if they receive more than R624 a month in their bank account.
The value of the SRD Grant will remain R350 per person for the period of 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023.
The proposed amendment also aims to remove the requirement for each applicant to indicate if they need the grant after 3 months.
The Department of Social Development strongly advises that grant applicants should appeal any rejected applications for each month that it has been declined. However the appeal is now lodged directly with the Appeals Tribunal and no longer through SASSA.
Read more about the new appeal process here.
The new website for appeals is https://srd.dsd.gov.za